Turkish PM Starts Election Campaign.. Blames opposition

Turkey’s prime minister comes out swinging against all comers in launching the government’s election manifesto Friday. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticizes the country’s main opposition parties while also unveiling an ambitious plan for economic growth. By 2023, the Erdoğan expects Turkey’s per capita income to total around $25,000, he says in Bayburt

Erdoğan said they were going to elevate Turkey into becoming one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched the Justice and Development Party, or AKP’s, electoral campaign in Bayburt by explaining the government’s economic vision for Turkey’s future and slamming the opposition.

“Here we will commence the opening of 36 investments whose total value amounts to 195 million Turkish Liras. Many of them are already serving [the people here],” said Erdoğan in his inaugural speech in the northern province of Bayburt.

Indicating that they were aiming very high, Erdoğan said they were going to elevate Turkey into becoming one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023. The prime minister also claimed that Turkey’s gross domestic product will have risen to $2 trillion by then, and that per capita income will have reached $ 25,000.

“Now some will ask whether you have $25,000 in your pocket or not. Look, we are talking about expanding the economy. No one puts such money into anybody’s pocket in any part of the world. Back when you were in power, [Republican People’s Party] CHP, you made this country plea for 25 Turkish Kuruş, for 5 kuruş. Do you not remember how we waited in queues for cooking oil, for gas? Back then, it was the CHP in power. They used to meet in the Cabinet with overcoats on their backs because the heaters were out of use,” said the prime minister.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, also received their share of criticism from the prime minister. He mentioned the riots in the streets of eastern and southeastern Turkey in previous days and claimed the BDP and other parties were “rubbing their hands together [malevolently]” when the youth stoned the police.

Erdoğan denied claims that the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, had vetoed the candidacies of pro-Kurdish independents under their orders, saying, “[The opposition] are used to the executive intervening into the judiciary, they look for political will behind every [judicial] decision.”

Erdoğan said disturbing people with Molotov cocktails, torching and destroying public buses and killing people inside the buses was neither a democratic or civilian right.

The prime minister stressed that the Turkish Republic was a great state with its history, culture and civilization.

“We stay where our brothers in need are, wherever there is suppression and pressure, [trying to support them] with all our power and possibilities. We have made Turkey’s voice heard in the world – even on issues on which everyone stays silent,” he said. “Bayburt’s issue is ours as much as it is Kabul’s, Darfur’s, Baghdad’s, Benghazi’s, Sarajevo’s, Gaza’s and Jerusalem’s. If we turn our back on Gaza, we will be shamefaced in Bayburt,” Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan also criticized the CHP and Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, for “taking their power from gangs and mafia” while the AKP takes theirs “from the people” because of Ergenekon suspects being deputy candidates for the election.

Ergenekon is an alleged ultranationalist, shadowy gang known accused of planning to topple the government by staging a coup initially by spreading chaos and mayhem.

The CHP has three candidates who are Ergenekon suspects, while the MHP has none; it, however, is running one candidate who is a suspect in the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) case, another alleged coup trial.

April 22, 2011
SOURCE: HURRIYET DAILY NEWS